TEFL del Sur – what a morning!

We had a great time hosting TEFL del Sur on Saturday morning and it was fabulous to see so many familiar and new faces along for a morning of professional development.

There were four talks throughout the morning on a variety of different themes, but each one with some practical ideas to keep us going through the final term.

Before the break, we heard talks from Kasia Kepka and Dan Barber.

The Voice

This was Kasia‘s second TEFL del Sur talk this year and again she was looking at ways of motivating and engaging her teen learners. This session provided a fabulous outline for a lesson using the TV show The Voice and looked at the type of language we want our B1 learners to be experiementing with in the lesson.

Looking forward, looking back

In Dan‘s session we discussed why it’s important to take time at the end of the year to look forward and look back. We talked about how a moment of reflection on the year allows our learners to see the progress they’ve made, as well as highlight any areas which are strengths and weaknesses. Dan’s argument for looking forward was that we need to provide our learners with solid support for the upcoming summer months as all too often English, as well as other school subjects, get forgotten over the long holiday here in Spain.

The coffee break was the perfect opportunity to catch up with friends and make new ELT contacts, as we enjoyed a café con leche in the sunshine. There were also cookies on offer throughout the morning – a gift from Pan de Aida to thank TEFL del Sur for supporting their gofundme campaign.

After the break, we had two talks from our very own Simon Pearlman and Carmen Plaza. Simon is one of Active Language’s directors and a founding member of TEFL del Sur. Carmen is one of the language centre’s academic coordinators and her role involves working with teachers on their individual professional development paths.

A Box of Tricks

Simon’s session had lots of practical takeaways to keep our younger learners engaged in the upcoming weeks. We looked at using picture dictations, making minibooks and doing class questionnaires amongst other things and rounded off the session sharing our own ideas for using mini-whiteboards and sound machines.

The Together Teacher

Carmen’s session was based around a Coursera course she had taken to improve organisation and time management and all attendees found it incredibly useful. She shared templates which could be useful to help us organise our time more effectively and we looked at the different ways in which we “waste” our time.

If you are interested, there is a new course starting on May 14th and you can find more details on the Coursera website.

At the end of the morning, we went to Olivo for refreshments and Greek tapas and, again in the sunshine, reflected on the morning’s sessions. A great way to spend a Saturday morning with a little boost to keep us going until the end of June! Many thanks to all the speakers for such engaging content and to TEFL del Sur for another fabulous morning!